You think you know what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun...

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

The Bee-Yoch-ing Hour!

Yes, I watched the ball-busting, bone-crushing, unrelenting glorious actioner that is Transformers!

The movie started quietly enough. It was quiet. For about 5 minutes. Then the DecepticonBlackout got bored of being a big, fat MH-53 Pave Low chopper and transformed.

The entire population of Star 2 went nuts and my head promptly exploded.

This is the kind of film that rushes up to you, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags you through two hours and twenty minutes of furious action and wanton robotic violence. To put it mildly, Transformers rocks. If you watch it in the right spirit of course.

I was very worried about all the stuff that I'd been hearing about this movie. I was worried that all the changes wouldn't work. Things like Bumblebee not being a Beetle and Optimus having a mouth. Stuff that I don't remember from the cartoons and comics and other stuff that the producers had to cut out.

All those doubts quickly evaporated as Blackout and Frenzy do their nasty work in the first 15 minutes of the movie.

The humans weren't bad either. Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox did an excellent job in their respective roles, especially LeBeouf who carried many scenes with his wit and humour. The supporting cast was good enough too.

But let's face it, people came to watch Transformers not to ogle at Megan or laugh at Shia's jokes but to watch Autobots and Decepticons go at each other's throats. And go they did.

Hugo Weaving's Megatron was spot on, menacing and uncompromising. Just as he should always be. I got to say though, for some reason the Decepticon Barricade really caught my attention. Such attitude. To Punish and Enslave indeed.

I have one minor complaint. Not enough Starscream. More Starscream in the sequel please?

How about the Autobots?

I love that scene with Bumblebee's bee shaped Bee-yoch rear view mirror ornament. I want one for myself. It would be so cool.

Optimus was Optimus. What can anyone say about him? With or without a mouth, Optimus is Optimus.

Of the others, I like Ironhide the most. He's as badass as ever, in whatever reincarnation. I have to say that this version of him is the most badass ever, especially in terms of raw firepower.

All in all, as an old G1 fan, I'm very surprised at how much I enjoyed this new Transformers. It was brilliant. It might not have been old skool G1, but all the things that define the Transformers were all there. The spirit of G1 is alive and well!

I'm glad they didn't tone down the violence. That would've turned it into a stupid toy movie, as opposed to an awesome toy movie.

To wrap things up, I say that this movie is the best action flick I've ever watched in a long, long time. Perhaps even for all time. It's so good, I'm going to watch it again this week!

One more thing, if you are going to watch this movie looking for meanings and analogies and flow and symbolism and other arty stuff, take my advice.

Don't watch it.

This is NOT an art film. Transformers is robot action movie about robots kicking each other's ass. Watch it as that and nothing else. If you expect it to be anything else, you will be like those humourless pseudo-film critic morons on IMDB.

In other news, I heard some unsettling news the last few days.

I heard rumours that because of our recent takeover, there are plans to relocate the plant somewhere else. Like China. Or Thailand. Or West Malaysia. As can be expected, a lot of people are worried about this.

From what I've been hearing officially, it's going to be business as usual. The only thing that'll change is the company name.

So many conflicting rumours. I supposed I'm not going to worry about it until I know for sure.